1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a width adjusting machine for reel cutters with at least two web guide rollers. More particularly, this invention relates to a compact apparatus for spreading a traveling fibrous web, such as a sheet of paper, which has been cut in the direction of web travel, such that the cut web portions are spread laterally of their direction of travel, and for collecting and discharging the dust particles produced while maintaining a predetermined gap distance between the cut web portions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Reel cutters separate a material web that is unwound from a roller, having an elongated axial portion in the longitudinal direction (web advance direction) into several partial (i.e. narrower slit web portions) webs which are subsequently wound up again. During this process, it is very important to guide the partial webs exactly parallel to each other and to avoid mutual defects on the cut edges of adjacent partial webs. Width adjusting machines with two web guide rollers are increasingly utilized for this purpose, whereby the first roller, viewed in the web advance direction, has a spherical shape (i.e. profile) in the area of the partial, or circumferentially extending, surface on either side of which the material web is wound, which shape is preferably obtained by a corresponding bending of the axis of this web guide roller. This first web guide roller expands the entire web material widthwise, whereby adjacent partial webs diverge in the area of the cut edges, so that they are no longer parallel. In order to provide a possibility for an exact subsequent winding of the partial webs, however, these webs must be guided parallel to each other. A second web guide roller which becomes effective within a certain distance from the first web guide roller, preferably, a few hundred ram, and whose partial surface around which the web material is wound is constructed with its surface profile opposite to the spherical or convex shape of the first web guide roller, that is, in a concave shape. The individual partial webs, which by now have a certain lateral distance between each other, are guided back in a parallel direction while maintaining their separation. Such a width adjusting machine thus has a substantial space requirement between the cutting station and the winding station of the reel cutting machine.
Above and beyond these requirements, reel cutters usually necessitate the removal of dust and/or possible residue produced during the longitudinal cutting, or slitting, process and deposited on the material web. These generally known dust removal systems thus also have a substantial space requirement which, as mentioned above, even further exacerbates the problems of all-too-confined space conditions.